


The Lightweight Warrior

by Vreliskriri



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen, The Vault (Final Fantasy XIV) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26230213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vreliskriri/pseuds/Vreliskriri
Summary: A rundown of the years leading up to Rine's eighteenth nameday.
Kudos: 2





	The Lightweight Warrior

Rine wakes up under the orange trees in Summerford to a day of her fifteenth summer. Hair still in the braids that were her father’s parting gift, feet in boots that have room for growth. Her new spellbook has fallen off her lap. The bookmark is missing. Perhaps she has dropped it somewhere along the farmhouse road.   
  


The light stings her eyes, shining above the fortifications ahead as Rine runs uphill, her robes a bolt of orange on the frosty cobblestones. The Dravanian rosaries safe inside her mittens, her heartbeat like overwound clockwork, she practically flies over the last few steps. The door wasn’t always this heavy, the desk not this far from the door, but Haurchefant meets her halfway.   
  


The sun has set the clouds on fire, casting a tall shadow Rine is almost trying to outrun. No silhouette can make up for the unnatural silence of the corridors that seems to swallow the sound of her footsteps. Behind every corner, that silence is hiding something sharp and unforgiving. Fine, let her be the heretic. At the end of today, it’ll take more than a pyre in the sky to burn the fight out of her. What it takes... is a smile. 

The tempest has a will of its own and a familiar voice. Cold whispers tear their way in through old scars, finding memories of her own screams, of Garuda’s laughter. Rine lets them. She isn’t afraid of wind anymore. Carried on strange wireworks, holding on tight, Rine looks down past her feet and the fear of falling and takes in the chaos she has wrought on Xelphatol. She is destruction and ruin in the flesh. A beast, lunging at any who stand in her way with the talons of their goddess. Yet the cruelty that forces her hand is not her own. Proud wings, skybound machinery, ambitions and dreams- to the Ascians none of it is worth a damn.  
  
 _You will damn well pay for everyone I’ve killed today.  
_

“As friend and confidant…” It has to be a distraction. To lower her guard. A ruse Rine needs to tear down this instant, and yet, there is something in that smile. In direct daylight it’d never pass for compassion, but right now the sun hangs low and wraps the garden in a warm, red glow. The wind brushes over the flower beds, over the both of them, and Zenos sees what he wants to see. The beast forgets herself, breathes in the sweet smell, the sound of waiting filling her ears as she takes a step towards his open arms.

 _Mine,_ he hums.  
  
Looking through his enemy at someone she is not, he overlooks the liar that she is.  
  


Under the turning heavens, Rine acts carefree. She laughs, sings and tells stories holding a mug she doesn’t drink from. She takes care to smile all the way up to her eyes. Rine forgets a Dotharl does not look at the eyes. Sadu’s grin is disarming in the firelight. She steps closer. Her hands come to rest on Rine’s stiff shoulders and stay there, completely still. Heavy. _Warm_ .  
  
“Our khagan seems afraid... of the buuz,” Sadu muses. “You think to deny it? Don’t. I’m not mocking you, I want to understand.”  
  


Rine is feeling lightheaded as she makes for the top of the spiral staircase. The Cabinet of Curiosity is much to take in at once, so she promises herself to come back at a better time for a profound visit.  
  
“ _And,”_ Rine silently adds while being helped up and told to take deep, calm breaths by the soft-spoken man she was supposed to meet, “ _ask Moren here what the people of the First do with chronically inept lungs.”  
  
_

Miasma wasn't known to leave lasting damage. Neither was it a spell you self-inflicted, nor had its effects been tested on children. Not until her, no. What had been a minor setback in her arcanima studies became a persistent cough, which turned into the persistent fever that ate up Rine’s twelfth winter. With six years of persistent but manageable symptoms behind her, she doesn’t let her condition take up space from other, more pressing matters on her mind.   
  
Not until the weight of two worlds tightens around her chest, and she drops to the floor hacking up light.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Old writing...  
> It took me a year to publish this, but I haven't made many changes to the text since 2019. It holds up to the currently established Rine lore, so here we go!


End file.
